Beginning
by dwparsnip
Summary: A surprise transporter incident sends Rodney and Jennifer to a place by themselves. Seems like the perfect place for a talk and a new beginning.


Rodney walked along the slightly, narrow and rocky path with all the haste he could muster, which wasn't much

The usual legal disclaimer here: Don't own Stargate Atlantis, wish I did.

A million thanks to NoDoubtFan for looking this over for me. You rock.

Thanks for reading.

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Rodney stumbled down the slightly narrow and rocky path with all the haste he could muster, which wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Never sure footed on anything except the smooth metal deck of Atlantis and Earth facilities of similar type flooring, and even then only slightly, the uneven and obstacle laden sloping path was a tumble waiting to happen. Fortunately the end of the hill was in sight and it seemed to run into a flat stretch of land after that.

"_Almost there, Rodney. You can make it,"_ he chanted encouragingly to himself.

He heard a scraping noise behind him and he stopped in his tracks. As a couple of golf ball sized rocks rolled against his boots he reached back out of reflex with his left hand. His companion's smaller hands seized his hand with a grip that would have made the burliest arm wrestler proud.

Before he could turn around and tell her to be careful she said, "Sorry. I didn't see that one."

The mixture of sincerity and fear in her voice and the way she was holding his hand to steady herself made him feel like a cretin for thinking about yelling at her. She was doing her best, as he was, under less than ideal conditions.

He cleared his throat and kept his eyes forward as he said, "Yes, well, we're almost there. Not much further."

He gently shook himself free from her grasp and started edging down the incline once more.

And for the twenty feet it took for him to reach the bottom he kept rubbing his fingers together, trying to get the tingling sensation that her touch had caused to go away. He turned around after barely restraining himself from bending over to kiss the flat ground and waited for Jennifer. She was only a couple of feet from the safety of the flat land when her right foot slipped, sending her backwards. She tried to catch herself by leaning forward and waving her arms, but she overcompensated and began falling forward.

Rodney had enough time to register the look of panic flash across her features before realizing that she was going to fall onto him. He never even had time to decide on whether or not to catch her as her momentum, his position and fate had already determined that he was going to act as a pillow.

"Umphhhh!" grunted Rodney as Jennifer ploughed into him. He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable fall backwards, blow to the back of the head and lower back included. Sure enough, a moment later a sharp pain in his lower back was followed almost immediately by a knock to the back of his head. He was fairly certain that if his eyes were open he would be seeing stars.

"Can you hear me, Rodney?" called Jennifer's worried voice, telling him that he was in fact conscious. Up until hearing her voice he hadn't been completely certain that he was.

He slowly opened his eyes, very much aware of the headache beginning to spread from the impact point on the back of his skull forward to his eyes, and he was pretty sure that something was digging into his back.

When his eyes opened fully he came face to face with an angel, a very worried one by the look of it.

"_It's Jennifer, Rodney,"_ he reminded himself. _"Not an angel."_ At least not in the biblical sense.

He closed his eyes and groaned in pain as he lifted his arms off the ground in an attempt rub his head to stave off the impending throbbing. His brow furrowed in confusion however, when his arms, in mid-lift, were impeded by something, something that suspiciously felt a lot like Jennifer's arms.

It was at that point that the pain in his head and back started taking a back seat to an odd tingling sensation that felt eerily familiar, only this time instead of it being in his hand it was vibrating throughout his entire body. He slowly opened his eyes again and found Jennifer mere inches away from him, still looking at him with concern glowing in her brown eyes.

"_If her head is there,"_ thought Rodney with the last vestige of rational thought in his head, _"then where's the rest of her?"_

He lowered his hands back to the ground and moved them in to feel his legs, but once again something kept them from their destination, and again it was Jennifer.

More specifically, Jennifer's legs. His fingers felt her knees and then moved downward along what Rodney could easily identify as the sides of her calves.

"_Oh crap! This isn't good,"_ he thought as he looked to the nonexistent space in between their bodies and realized that he was lying on the ground of an alien planet with a beautiful woman situated on top of him in a very intimate position.

**Very** intimate.

He looked back up into Jennifer's eyes and gulped.

--

"Can you hear me, Rodney?" asked Jennifer, aware that there was a little more panic in her voice than she thought there would be.

She had been so close to the bottom when she slipped, and she couldn't believe she'd panicked the way she had and ended up falling forward and tackling Rodney. If she'd allowed herself to fall back on her ass the worst that could have happened was she'd have a sore derriere. Now though, it was possible that she'd managed to injure Rodney, to say nothing of her dignity.

She'd ended up on top of Atlantis' resident super-genius, her arms extended forward to keep her from adding any more of her weight onto Rodney and her knees had ended up on either side of his legs.

She was about to ask him again if he was okay when she felt his arms gently graze along her waist and then her breasts before being stopped by her arms. If that hadn't been agonizingly wonderful she might have managed a laugh at the way his face showed his discomfort, apparently realizing what she had already determined. His arms fell down again and her breath hitched as his hands found her knees and then moved down her legs until they could go no farther.

She saw his eyes glance downward and then move back up to lock onto her own eyes. When he gulped, she wasn't sure for a second if it was him or her.

"Are you okay?" she asked again. It didn't escape her attention that this time her voice was lacking the concern it had in it earlier. Instead it was replete with emotion of another kind, a very different kind.

"I'm…I think I'm…I don't…"

Jennifer nearly jumped when his hands, which she hadn't even noticed left her lower legs, suddenly rested upon her hips.

"I'll live, though I may not be too happy about it," said Rodney. "You?"

Jennifer gave herself a quick self-exam. There was no pain anywhere, and the only impact areas she had, her knees, seemed to be fine.

"I'm okay, too," she responded after a moment.

She took a second to study Rodney's face. His blue eyes were still wider than usual and his mouth was slightly ajar; there were two dirt streaks running along his right cheek and his breathing was a little heavier than usual.

Of course, so was hers.

Jennifer lifted her left hand from the ground and placed her slender fingers on Rodney's jaw, then gently applied enough pressure to get him to turn to his left so she could check his cheek.

After verifying that there were no cuts or bruises on his cheek she applied enough pressure on his chin with her thumb to get him to turn back and look at her.

"Thank you," she said quietly, and when he looked confused she added, "For catching me…thank you."

""Yes, well," he cleared his throat, which sent a slight breeze of lightly coffee flavored breath across her face. "I didn't really have much of a choice."

Some would have taken that remark as an insult, but she knew Rodney well enough by now to know that he was simply stating a fact and meant nothing untoward by it.

"Sorry," she whispered, though she couldn't for the life of her understand why she was whispering.

"Hmn?"

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "for falling on you."

He was acting strangely she knew, at least more strangely than usual. What she didn't know was why. Was he acting like that because of the bump to his head, or was he acting that way for the same reason she was whispering when there was no reason to.

--

"Well, I don't think there was anything else you could do," he replied, "At least we're both uninjured…and able to…"

He saw her eyes widen for a split second and felt her body push against his as she gasped slightly. He immediately realized what he'd said. "Go on, I mean! We can try to find a way back to the others….not anything else, nothing else! Just that…get back to the others." He moved his hands, which he only then realized were resting on Jennifer's hips, to her waist and gently pushed her off him to the left.

When her leg cleared him he jumped up as quickly as he was able. He dusted himself off and looked down to see Jennifer looking up at him expectantly.

"What?" asked Rodney, and when Jennifer's right eyebrow rose an inch he realized what she was waiting for. "Really? I just had someone jump on me and make me hit my back on the hard ground, you know?"

But he reached down anyway and took her hands in his. "One, two, three!"

Instead of standing there gawking at her like a voyeur as she wiped the dust off her standard black Atlantis uniform, he busied himself by brushing himself off again, not that he really needed to.

When he finished he looked to her, motioned in the direction of the forest in the distance and said, "We should get going."

Jennifer nodded her agreement, and he started walking. She fell into step beside him and said, "So what happened?"

"Obviously the device was some sort of transporter," he said irritably, as though it should have been obvious. The device was a religious artifact that the backwater residents of this planet worshipped for reasons that escaped him. It was essentially a box with no visible markings or openings, that it until someone with the Ancient gene approached it. It was Sheppard who did it, naturally. It would be a strange mission indeed where Sheppard wasn't getting him into trouble of some sort one way or the other.

Sheppard wanted to see the bloody thing and the elder took him to it, leaving Teyla, Ronon, Jennifer and himself behind to make small talk with the natives that had gathered around to see them. He was just about to swat away the fifth child that had wandered up to him when Sheppard's voice in his ear told him to come and see the artifact.

It wasn't until he actually walked into the room that he realized that Jennifer had decided to accompany him. He'd asked Sheppard what the big deal was, and in response the Colonel simply pointed at the artifact, suddenly covered with brightly lit Ancient writing and a small triangular display screen. He took off and discarded his heavy backpack, dropping it unceremoniously next to Sheppard, and approached the machine. He'd been standing in front of it trying to figure out what it was for nearly five minutes when a flash of light suddenly enveloped him. He looked around and saw Keller standing next to him with a bewildered look on her face, but when he turned around to ask Sheppard what the hell he'd done, the Colonel was nowhere to be found.

It didn't take him long to deduce that they'd been transported to another room, and quite possibly another location on the planet. He began studying the panel again to see if he could reverse the transport when the first tremor hit.

He and Jennifer looked at each other, and without saying a word they both ran to the nearest exit, which was easy to find as the layout of the building was identical to the one that Sheppard had led them through in the village. What they saw when they finally got out of the building terrified him. The building they'd been transported to sat atop a small hill, and a quick visual inspection of the building told him that it had seen better days structurally. A second tremor told him why. The area was most likely unstable and unsafe. He was about to suggest they move down the slope when a third and much stronger tremor hit. It was so strong that a crack developed in the building's façade right before their eyes. Rodney grabbed Jennifer's hand and began moving down the slope, releasing her hand when it became obvious that they would both need both their hands to safely navigate the hill.

He glanced over to Jennifer and added, "The power surge that accompanied our transport may have added to the instability of the building; that and the tremors were too much. The building probably hadn't been used in centuries."

"Keller to Sheppard," said Jennifer after activating her comm. unit.

"That won't work," said Rodney sharply. "The natural ionization in the planet's atmosphere limits our comm. units' range to a few kilometers." He'd managed to catch a glimpse of the landscape around the hill before their hasty descent and didn't see any sign of civilization anywhere. "You were at the briefing weren't you?"

"How do you know we're heading in the right direction then?" she asked, ignoring his barb.

Rodney stopped and turned towards her, and when Jennifer looked at him he said loudly, "I don't!" He pointed up to the sinking sun. "But even though there's apparently a full moon up there, it's going to be dark soon and the best bet for shelter is probably in that forest." He lowered his hand and started walking again. "Sheppard will find us, he always does. He'll get Zelenka to look at the machine and he'll figure it out and they'll find us. We just need to find a place to stay safe and sound and before we know it there will be a Jumper hovering over us ready to take us home."

"Maybe we should just head back towards…"

Rodney stopped and whirled around to face her again. "Look, what is this, your tenth or eleventh mission off world? I would think that my 200 plus off world excursions would trump your paltry dozens trips in regards to experience, not to mention the fact that I know a little something about earthquakes and structural support." Rodney took a breath and pointed to the forest. "There we can find shelter and food because, in case you haven't noticed, my backpack and yours didn't make the trip with us and are probably still resting comfortably next to Sheppard's foul smelling feet back in the village. I don't know how long it might take Zelenka to figure it out. It might take him half an hour or less, but if it takes him three or four days I'd prefer to be there instead of on an unstable hilltop or out here in the open. What about you?"

Jennifer looked back to the hill and then to the forest. "The forest it is," she said as she started walking again.

"Thank you!" muttered Rodney sarcastically as he joined her.

He looked to the forest and only then realized in the dying daylight just how ominous it really looked.

Rodney hoped Radek was as smart as he thought he was.

--

Jennifer fumed in silence as she walked next to McKay. She wasn't mad at him, despite his condescending tone of voice and biting words. He was who and what he was, and she wouldn't change who or what he was for anything.

No, she was mad at herself for not realizing any of what he had just said. She was at the pre-mission briefing and heard Rodney explain to them all about the limited comm. range, and she should have realized that staying in or near a building on top of a seismically active hill was unsafe.

She sighed and glanced over to Rodney. He hadn't said a word in nearly ten minutes, if her estimation of passing time had been accurate. At their pace she judged that it would take them another ten minutes to reach the tree line, and it would be pretty close to dark by the time they got there.

She looked forward again and tried to remember her wilderness survival training, crammed as it was into a ten day course three weeks before she left the SGC on board the Daedalus. Rodney was right in that their top priority would be shelter, food and water. He was also right in that the forest was most likely the best location from which to obtain those essential things.

She hated it when Rodney was quiet.

"Twenty-third," she stated out of the blue in an attempt to generate some conversation and fill the deafening silence.

He turned to her and said, "What?"

She turned to him for a second and then refocused on the way ahead. "It's my twenty-third mission off world. I've gone through the gate more than twenty-three times, but this is technically my twenty-third mission."

"Hmn," grunted McKay, and she smiled.

It was as close as she was going to get to him admitting that he was wrong about something.

"I'm thinking about limiting my off world travel," she commented hesitantly.

"What!" exclaimed McKay incredulously. "Why?"

She flashed him a morbid smirk. "Every time I go off world something happens…usually something bad." She spread her arms wide, encompassing the scene before them. "This is a perfect case in point."

Rodney shook his head. "You can't be serious! If the number of missions we went on was based solely on bad things happening to us then I wouldn't even be allowed to go near the gate much less walk through it." He held up his index finger and pointed it at her. "Besides, you're the best doctor we have and most if not all the medical issues we face requires our best doctor."

Hearing Rodney say that meant a lot to her. He wasn't usually forthcoming with his praise at the best of times and it was usually non-existent for doctors as a rule. She'd even heard him refer to some doctors in very unflattering terms.

"Thank you, Rodney," she said sincerely.

Rodney simply nodded and kept walking with his eyes forward.

"Do you really think Radek will figure out the transporter?" she asked.

"He's reasonably intelligent and resourceful," replied Rodney. "He'll do it."

She wasn't sure if it was Rodney's overly confident tone of voice or the way his eyes flickered towards her before he answered, but she wasn't exactly inspired with confidence.

Her eyes looked upward to the sun, now almost completely hidden by the horizon. She wasn't afraid of the dark as such, but the dark on a strange planet was another story. There wasn't much in the mission briefing notes about native fauna, though she supposed there had to be animals of some kind around.

She decided it was best if she tried very hard not to think about it.

Silence enveloped them again as they neared their destination, and when they did reach the edge of the forest a few minutes later she asked, "What now?" She looked over at Rodney and was concerned to see him peering nervously into the forest.

She followed his gaze and didn't like what she saw. It was a dense forest of trees that resembled pine trees, except their braches were an odd mixture of green, blue and yellow and much, much thicker. There were no visible paths leading into the foliage, nor was there an indication of water nearby. Not that she could see much in the line of details because of the rapidly descending nightfall.

"We need a fire," he responded resolutely. "To keep us warm and to use as a signal if anyone comes along." He shifted uncomfortably in his place and she could practically hear him thinking that it would also keep any animals away.

"We should stay near the edge of the forest then," she said as she bent over at the waist and picked up some dry wood. She straightened up and added, "Instead of trying to go in there."

"What?" asked Rodney, as though he had been lost in thought or distracted by something, though she had no idea what he could have been distracted by. "Yes, the edge…of the forest, yes." He walked over and picked up a medium sized rock and brought over and placed it on the ground near her feet.

She watched as he repeated the move until he had arranged a circle of stones on the ground as a makeshift fire pit. She placed the dry twigs in the circle and went in search of more. When she figured she had enough she brought it back to the circle of rocks and looked at Rodney, who was looking at her just as intently.

"Well?" she said after she set up the twigs and sticks in a standard teepee formation.

"Well what?" he demanded.

"Well aren't you going to start a fire?"

"Do I look like Daniel Boone over here?" he replied sharply. He held out his empty hands and added, "Do I look like I have something to start a fire with?" He started opening his tac vest pockets in a grand show for her to see that all he had were two power bars. "A lighter is not something I usually carry on…what the hell is this?"

She put her hand up to cover her mouth and stifle the laugh that wanted oh so badly to bubble out at the look on his face.

She watched, her hand still covering her burgeoning smile, as he opened the small baggie that he had removed from one of the vest's pockets. He opened it and took out a small metal object and a piece of paper and read what was on it. When he was finished his hands fell disgustedly to his sides and he looked upward as if searching for something.

"What is it, Rodney?" she asked when her curiosity became too much.

He wordlessly passed her the note and she read it aloud. "Dear Meredith," she looked up for a second and caught the tail end of a flinch from Rodney at the use of his first name. "After a random spot check of your vest I found it lacking in survival gear. Shame on you! I've put a pen flare, this magnesium fire starter and the instructions on how to both in here, not that the smartest man in two galaxies should need instructions. Anyway, I hope you never need to use them, but you know what they say, better safe than sorry. Col. J. Sheppard. P.S.- We'll talk later about you're not having your vest properly stocked."

Rodney was standing there looking directly at her, and the longer he did the more the smile that she had been valiantly trying to hold at bay was getting out until finally she couldn't hold it in anymore, and along with the smile came laughter.

Rodney turned away and muttered something that sounded to her an awful lot like "Smartass", though she couldn't be sure. At any rate, with the prophetic gift from Sheppard it didn't take Rodney long to get a sizable fire started, though there were at least three instances of hushed cursing and unflattering imitations of Sheppard.

She sat down on one side of the fire and watched as Rodney tried to decide what to do. Finally he sat down on the opposite side of the fire and stared into the orange-red flames.

She turned her gaze to the fire as well. She thought for a moment about the last two weeks since they almost lost Rodney to the second childhood. He had been in the Infirmary for only a day after the parasite's removal and back to work after three, much to her consternation. She'd told him to take it easy for a week. At any rate, she hadn't seen him much.

He came in for his checkups, but only because she threatened him with overly intrusive exams if he didn't. Other than that he always seemed to be avoiding her.

And that bothered her.

She had tried to find him several times for different reasons; to have something to eat, to talk and to watch a movie. And every time she thought she'd found him he had some sort of excuse ready so that he couldn't spend time with her.

She looked through the flames and saw that he was looking at her.

Maybe it was time for some answers.

--

Sheppard's note and gift was a godsend, though Rodney would never admit it to anyone, especially not Sheppard. The blazing fire was easily warding off the chill that had been descending upon them with the arrival of the dark.

If it were another time, another place and different circumstances he might have actually enjoyed sitting next to a warm fire looking at Jennifer through the flames. It surprised him that even now it wasn't completely unpleasant.

His fingers began dancing about his knee, the combination and rhythm a leftover tactile memory from his days playing the piano a lifetime ago. It was what usually happened when he had nothing to do and was uncomfortable with his situation. It was all bad enough to be marooned on an unfamiliar planet at night, but to be stuck with Jennifer only added to his anxiety.

Not that he found her company disquieting; quite the contrary as a matter of fact. At least that's the way he'd felt before he told her about how he felt about her.

He continued to stare at her as she watched the fire. The glow cast upon her face by the flickering flames only served to emphasize just how attractive she was, not that she needed any sort of outside force or anything to accentuate her natural beauty, and not that that was the sole reason that he…

The thought fled his mind when she suddenly looked up and caught his gaze. He wanted to look away because something in the way that she looked at him told him trouble was coming.

He managed after a second to tear his gaze from her and stand up. With a jerk of his thumb towards the tree line he said, "I'm going to go…over there, by the trees to, ah, do something that requires a little privacy."

Without looking at her he turned and headed to the edge of the trees and found a suitably large enough tree to hide behind. After making sure that he wasn't visible from the area around the fire, he unzipped his pants and sighed as relief washed over him.

"_Okay, Rodney…what do we have?"_ he thought. _"I have my gun, two power bars, a small flare and a knife. My life signs detector was with the backpack, along with just about everything else. Only two power bars? Crap! She probably doesn't have anything in her vest."_

Rodney zipped up his pants and slowly made his way back to the fire. When he was close enough to see the immediate area surrounding the fire, he could see that something was missing…or rather someone was missing.

He ran the extra few steps to the fire and verified that Jennifer wasn't there. Panic gripped at him as his head began moving rapidly back and forth in an effort to survey the land around him as quickly as he could. The fire was limited in the amount of area that it illuminated, but he could still see a little ways beyond because of the bluish glow cast down from the moon.

"Jennifer!" he called as he took a step away from the fire in the direction of the hill they'd abandoned. "Jennifer!"

The rational part of his mind tried to tell him that she was okay and nearby, but it was easily swallowed up by the emotional part of him, the part that felt so strongly for her and made his stomach queasy with worry.

And the shriek he heard from the forest didn't help. He turned around quickly to face the forest and his right hand reached down and clumsily undid the Velcro clasp that secured his nine millimeter to his hip. After the second attempt he pulled the weapon free and pointed it towards the forest as he once again looked around for any sign of Jennifer.

A second shriek made him turn his attention back the forest.

He couldn't see anything really, the intense glow of the fire that was in front of him distorting his vision past a few feet. He was just about to call out to Jennifer again when her voice calling his name from his right nearly scared the crap out of him.

He was so torn between anger at her for apparently leaving without telling him and joy at knowing that she was okay that he didn't know what to do her.

He holstered his weapon and turned to face her as she walked up to him, and when she was close enough he reached out with both hands and grabbed her shoulders. "Where the hell were you?" he demanded angrily. "I come back and you're nowhere to be seen! For all I knew you'd been dragged off into the woods by whatever possibly carnivorous beast is making that ungodly sound!" He shook her more roughly than he'd meant. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack!"

He took a breath and realized that he wasn't shaking her at all…it was him that was shaking. He saw her open her mouth to say something but she closed it again without whispering a syllable. Instead, she leaned in towards him…

--

Jennifer closed her eyes and pressed her lips against Rodney's, partly in an effort to shut him up and partly to apologize for scaring him to death, but mostly because she wanted to.

He didn't respond at first, and she was fairly certain that if she opened her eyes to check she'd see that he was looking at her. She pressed her advantage and moved her mouth against his, and nearly smiled when he responded in kind. She moved her hands up to his waist and edged in closer to him, not close enough to touch but definitely in his personal space.

When he really responded and he started caressing her shoulders, she couldn't help but be amazed that he was so good at it. Katie had said once in jest that he was a good kisser and those around her scoffed at the idea. She gave them a brilliant smile, but they wouldn't be convinced that Rodney McKay knew how to kiss a woman, much less believe that he was good at it. But she'd been right.

Rodney stopped the kiss and eased away from her, and against her will she opened her eyes and looked at him. His breathing was heavy and ragged, his mouth slightly open in an attempt to take in enough oxygen to supply the demand issued by his lungs. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination, the situation or the glow of the fire, but his eyes seemed brighter than usual.

And then, right before her very eyes, something seemed to click in his mind. He released her shoulders and stepped back from her as though she'd shocked him, which she probably had.

"Where were you?" he asked again, though this time he didn't shout and he managed to keep the anger in his voice restrained…at least as restrained as Rodney McKay was able.

She folded her arms across her chest and gave him a smirk. "You're not the only one with biological functions that need to be taken care of, Rodney."

Rodney looked confused for a second, but then understanding dawned in his eyes and he nodded his head.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "but I couldn't wait for you to come back."

He nodded again. "Yes well, I shouldn't have grabbed you like that, or yelled at you. I didn't mean to…I mean I was just…I was," he paused for a second and then said softly, "worried. I was worried something had happened to you, especially when I heard those howls."

She looked to the forest and said, "It sounded like some sort of wolf or something,"

"Wolf?" said Rodney in disbelief. "Did you even hear it? If it was a wolf then it's on steroids or something. Look, we should settle down for the night and stay close to the fire. If either of us has to…you know…then we'll go together." The magnitude of what he said dawned on him and he waved nervously at her as he was prone to do when he said something that could be misconstrued as being perverted or sexist. "Not **together **like I watch you or you watch me, just stay close to each other so we can watch out for each other. Watch out, not watch. There's a difference."

Deciding to make it easy for him, Jennifer kept a lid on the laughter that had been building up within her and nodded at what he said. He was making perfect sense after all, in a roundabout Rodney sort of way. Rodney motioned to the fire with his hand and she moved towards it, sitting down at its edge as she had before.

To her surprise, her _pleasant_ surprise, Rodney sat down beside her. She looked at the fire again, the dancing amber and orange flames almost mesmerizing, until the sound of Velcro being ripped open caused her to turn and look at Rodney as he looked for something in his vest.

She turned her attention back to the fire and thought about his reaction a few moments earlier. There was no doubt that he'd been worried about her, and his response to her kiss had been ardent once his brain managed to catch up on what was happening.

The sudden appearance of half a power bar in front of her made those thoughts evaporate. She looked to Rodney, then to the power bar. It was only as she reached to take it from him that she realized she was starving. She accepted it with a grateful nod and took a bite.

"_Not bad,"_ she thought as she took another bite. It tasted better than similar products she'd tried. _"Shouldn't be surprising…Rodney doesn't eat just anything."_

She finished off the bar and turned to look at Rodney, who had just finished his own piece of bar.

"What?" he asked when he realized she was looking at him.

Jennifer hesitated for a second, no longer certain that this was the time or place to try to have this conversation. _"On the other hand,"_ she realized, _"at least he can't run away from me."_

She looked into his eyes and asked, "Why have you been avoiding me?"

Rodney looked away from her in the direction of the fire and said scoffingly, "Avoiding you? I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't been avoiding you…or anyone. I've been around for people, including you, to find. Atlantis isn't that big." He cleared his throat. "What makes you think that I've been avoiding you?"

Jennifer turned to look at the fire, her courage slipping a little in the face of Rodney's derisive tone. "It seems as though you've been avoiding me ever since you recovered from the parasite," she said softly. "Every time I tried to talk to you or find you, you just brushed me off or made yourself impossible to find."

"Don't be ridiculous!" he exclaimed. "I've been around…"

"Rodney," she interrupted as she turned towards him, "why?"

"I haven't been…"

"Rodney," she said forcefully, "look me in the eye and tell me that you haven't been avoiding me."

She could see his Adam's apple working hard, and when he turned towards her she could see that she was winning. He opened his mouth, but closed it and turned away without making a sound.

She reached over with her right hand and placed it on his shoulder. The way his body went rigid made her question the wisdom in pursuing it, but she had to know.

"Please, Rodney," she said a little desperately. "I need to know if it's something I did…something I can fix."

He mumbled something that she couldn't quite hear.

"Rodney?"

"You can't fix your feelings!" he said harshly. "You can't help how or what you feel. You can't make yourself feel something that isn't there. You…you just can't. Believe me I have tried."

Jennifer felt her face contort in confusion. "Rodney what are you talking about?"

"Nothing," he said with a shake of his head, and it was obvious to her that he'd said much more already than he wanted to. "Never mind. It's not important anyway."

"It is to me," she responded.

Again Rodney shook his head. "Forget it, Jennifer. I don't want to talk about it, not now, not here."

"Rodney," said Jennifer, raising her voice, "what?"

"I told you I loved you," he answered in a loud rush, "and you just stood there. You didn't say anything, not thank you, not I'm sorry but I don't feel the same way, not I," he seemed to think better of what he was going to say and instead said, "just nothing. I said that and then we went on like I'd recited the periodic table. Admittedly I'm not an expert on that sort of thing but I would assume that some sort of response might have been appropriate."

Jennifer knew her eyes were wide with surprise, just as she knew that her cheeks were burning with embarrassment at what he was saying. It wasn't that she was embarrassed by what he was saying exactly, but by the knowledge that he was right.

She had simply stood there as a man she admired and adored told her that he loved her. But…

"I was surprised, Rodney," she said so quietly that the crackling of the fire nearly drowned it out. "Floored would probably be a better description. The last thing I was expecting was for you to tell me that." She regarded the fire and added, "And I wasn't sure if it was really you talking or the parasite affecting you."

"Come on, _Doctor_," he said with biting emphasis on her title, "you should have known it was me. The rest of that particular session wasn't bad, relatively speaking. In fact, it wasn't until day eight or nine that it really went downhill!"

She'd cringed at the way he'd called her 'Doctor' with so much scorn. "And that's why you've been avoiding me?"

Rodney grunted in amusement. "Of course! After you got that thing out of my head I was in the Infirmary for over twenty-four hours and you still didn't say anything about it." He picked up a small stone that had been sitting next to his leg and threw it over the fire into the night. "It was obvious that you didn't feel the same way, so to save everyone any awkwardness I decided it was best to limit the time we were together." He sighed and he seemed to tire suddenly. "It didn't matter if…it doesn't matter…how you feel, Jennifer. I mean I didn't…and don't…expect you to feel even remotely the same way."

"Why didn't you just talk to me?" she asked, her voice a sad combination of disappointment and anger. She turned to watch him and wait for an answer.

Rodney shot her the look that she had often seen him use when he thought someone had said something incredibly stupid. "Right, because I'm just so great at talking to people about my feelings," he said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

She kept her eyes on him as he stood up and looked down at her, and before he even said a word she knew that he was about to pull away from her.

"I'm sorry, that I told you I mean. I never should have, burdened you I guess, with that. I just thought that…never mind." He turned around and the said over his shoulder, "It's getting late. I don't know what that thing is out there, but someone should keep watch."

He started to move away and she finally found her voice and called, "Rodney."

"Good night, Jennifer," he said without stopping. He continued on and sat on a rather large boulder twenty feet away, turning just enough so that he could keep an eye on her.

Jennifer watched him for a few more minutes and then turned around to stare at the fire. She'd never heard Rodney talk like that before and it stunned her even more than she had been when he told her he loved her.

"_I mean I didn't…and don't…expect you to feel even remotely the same way,"_ she repeated to herself. He really didn't, did he?

She stood up, instinctually brushed the dirt from her pants and looked to where Rodney was sitting. He was looking up towards the full moon and its blue light gave his face a divine aura.

She moved towards him, her steps sure and steady, zeroed in as she was on her goal of reaching him and explaining herself. She would be damned if she would let him think what he was thinking.

She was still a few feet away from him when he noticed her approach and stood up to meet her.

Before he could say anything she put her hand to his mouth and said, "You've had your turn, Rodney." She pushed hard enough to make him sit back down on the rock and removed her hand from his mouth. "Now it's my turn."

Jennifer took a deep breath and clasped her hands together in front of her. "I meant what I said, Rodney. I was shocked at what you said and I don't think you can blame me for that. When you finished the log and left, I spent the next two hours trying to figure out why I hadn't been able to tell you that I love you too." She ignored the wide-eyed look of disbelief on his face and forged onward. "At first I blamed the shock, but I knew that wasn't the sole reason I didn't say anything. I **was** afraid for a moment that it was the parasite talking, but as you so sharply pointed out, I should have known better, and when I sifted through the emotions I had been feeling I did realize it." She felt the sting of tears in her eyes and she stepped closer to him. "Then, when the best possible thing happened and we managed to get rid of that thing, I wasn't sure if you even remembered telling me." She felt the first tear slip out of her eye and journey silently down her right cheek, but she dared not break eye contact with Rodney. "And if you didn't remember, what right did I have to hold it against you?"

She sighed, her breath exiting her body shakily and in a rush, and for the first time since sitting him down she looked away from him and up to the clear night sky. "I did try to talk to you," she said after a moment. She looked back at him and was unable to read what he was thinking. "But you wouldn't listen." She looked downward this time towards her feet. "I…"

"Jennifer?" Rodney said as he stood up.

Jennifer looked up into his eyes and waited.

"Did you just say that you love me?"

There was something about his voice as he asked that question, something different and unfamiliar. It wasn't the arrogant and brilliant astrophysicist asking the question; it wasn't the man who most days ignored his feelings and threw himself into his work; it wasn't the man who was supremely confident in his own intelligence and abilities; and it wasn't the man who only minutes ago berated her for not understanding the magnitude of what he'd said to her that day.

The man who was asking now was the man who saved her life in that Genii mine and shared a beer with her afterwards; it was the man who looked at her that fateful day and said 'I love you'; it was the man who had given so much of himself to save her and the population of Atlantis countless times; and it was the man who despite his vast intelligence couldn't bring himself to believe that he could be the object of a woman's affections.

Yet all of those characteristics pushed and melded together made him the man she loved.

"Yes," she said with a smile. "That's what I said."

She watched as hope flashed in his blue eyes, but as quickly as it had appeared it vanished.

"You don't mean that," he said knowingly. "You're caught up in the moment, or trying to make me feel better or you said it for some other genuinely noble reason that I can't even begin to fathom, but deep down it isn't true."

"I love you, Rodney," she said with as much conviction as she could summon from within herself.

Rodney shook his head. "No you don't, Jennifer. People like you, women like you I mean, don't love people like me. I'm sorry I told you…"

Jennifer jumped forward more than leaned this time to capture his lips, and while she was once again trying to shut him up as she had been the first time she kissed him, this time there were no apologies…only confidence and truth.

She poured everything she had in her soul into the kiss to try to convince him that her feelings were real, that they weren't a product of emotional distress or whatever the hell else it was he was trying to say. Her arms snaked up around his neck and her hands played with his hair as his arms went around her waist.

When their kiss ended a few moments later, he rested his forehead against hers and his eyes, crystal clear and bright blue, bored into hers.

"Wow," he said breathlessly.

That surprised her and she couldn't help but smile at him. "I love you, Rodney. I hope you believe that."

He leaned back and looked at her seriously. "What if I don't?" he asked smugly.

She gave him a half smirk and said, "Then I may have to kiss you again."

He seemed to consider that for a moment before saying, "Well then, I'm not sure I believe you."

She smiled and began pulling him towards her when a voice said in their ears, 'I thought I told you kids not to wander off', and they both jumped back, startled at the very unexpected sound.

Jennifer looked to Rodney, who was already looking up into the sky. After a moment he said, "There," as he raised his arm up to point at something.

Jennifer turned to see what he was pointing at,and it took her only a second to find the brightly lit cockpit of a Puddle Jumper heading towards them.

"Don't be a smartass, Sheppard," said Rodney into his comm. "Just get down here so we can go home."

'Keep your pants on, Rodney,' said Sheppard, obviously amused at something. 'We'll be there in a minute.'

Jennifer laughed at their repartee and then they both turned and watched as Sheppard brought the Jumper in for a landing near them, maneuvering the craft so that the rear hatch was facing towards them. It opened a few seconds later revealing Sheppard in the doorway, the bright light from behind him bathing him in a backlight glow that almost seemed ethereal. He walked down the ramp of the Jumper and Teyla, Ronon and Zelenka replaced him at the hatchway as Sheppard ambled towards them.

She looked at Rodney, who was regarding her with as serious an expression as she'd ever seen from him.

"It's not too late, Jennifer," he said quietly. "It's not too late to- well, we can forget what you said, what I said and what happened. We can…"

"No we can't," said Jennifer forcefully. "And I don't want to. Do you?"

Rodney stared at her and hesitated. She could practically hear the gears grinding together at unimaginable speeds in his massive brain.

He needed an extra little push she realized, and the twig Sheppard stepped on and cracked behind her, which reminded her of his presence, gave her an idea.

She reached over and dug her fingers underneath the edges of Rodney's tac vest at the shoulders and pulled him towards her. For the third time in a matter of hours she kissed Rodney, deeply, passionately, and this time with an audience.

She languidly ended the kiss after a few heartbeats and edged away from him ever so slightly, and when he appeared to her to begin to regain coherent thought she pulled him back to her and kissed him again.

Jennifer waited until her hands, which had been holding onto his vest tightly, began to ache before moving away from him once more.

Still holding him in place she said as she tried to regulate her breathing, "Now it's too late."

She found it funny as hell when his mouth opened and closed three times without making a sound.

"Nice fire," said Sheppard from behind her.

Rodney's eyes shifted away from hers and to Sheppard. She could feel the sting in her cheeks as she turned to look at Sheppard, not that she cared. She knew what she was doing and if it worked like she hoped, it would be more than worth it.

She wasn't disappointed in the Colonel's expression.

He stood next to the fire with an extinguisher in his left hand and a flashlight in the other, which was pointed in their direction and lit up the area near her feet. Even in the limited light provided by the fire, she could see the wide grin on his face, contorted slightly in what looked like an odd mixture of regret at interrupting, happiness for them and amusement at the entire situation.

He cleared his throat and motioned to the fire with the flashlight. "We could see it for miles. Looks like you worked really hard to get it going- almost seems like a shame to put it out."

He glanced at her as he said the last part and she felt the flush in her cheeks get a teeny bit hotter: she wasn't sure exactly which fire he was **really** talking about.

She turned her attention back to Rodney as he said to Sheppard, "How did you find…never mind, I don't really care. Let's just go home."

She smiled when Rodney reached over and took her hand in his. He seemed to marvel at feel of it for a moment before he looked to her and jutted his chin towards the Jumper. She nodded and they walked, hand in hand away from their fire and towards the Jumper.

"You're welcome by the way," said Sheppard as they walked by.

Jennifer smiled at Rodney, who shrugged his shoulders and smiled back at her.

As they heard the hiss of the extinguisher being discharged behind them, his hand tightened around hers, and for the first time in weeks she felt at peace with herself, her feelings and Rodney.

She glanced over to Rodney and her heart warmed when she noticed the small smile on his face.

It was too late to take any of it back. But it wasn't too late for them.

It was just beginning.


End file.
